I read the article

referenced by this Mises Daily piece, and spent a lot of time last week checking out "Parecon". I decided it was just another warmed-over Marxist attack on free markets. I was going to fisk "Market Madness", but the Mises guys beat me to it.

The Austrian Threat to Poland?

By D.W. MacKenzie

[Posted July 1, 2004]

Under the title of Market Madness, Mariusz Doszyn of Znet (one of the left's most important popular websites) interviews Michael Albert, a writer for Z and the South End Press and a proponent of "participatory economics"—apparently a euphemism for another of variety of socialism. The interview is particularly interesting for Austrians in as much as the question and answers center on the influence of Austrians in Poland.

From the tenor and approach, it would appear that Misesians are on the march in Poland and represent the gravest existing threat to the political left of that country. Whether or not this is the case (and there can be no question that the influence of Austrians is rising all over the world), these two gentlemen express the view that "free marketeers" are hypocrites or fools who decry state intervention generally, but embrace state intervention when it benefits wealthy elites.

To be sure, some free market advocates have not been entirely consistent in rejecting state intervention in sector after sector, though it might be argued that an inconsistent free market advocate is always to be preferred to a consistent socialist. It turns out, however, that none of the charges actually stick to Austrians, who typically take their consistency quite seriously.

This is followed by a series of specific charges which MacKenzie answers in the form of bibliographic essays with links the very titles of which serve as refutations.

Here are the attacks MacKenzie answers:

"See whether they are against defense spending."

"See if they turn down state subsidies to investment, and state purchases of output, and state protection against international competitors."

"Austrian economists prefer to talk about individuals without wider economic and social context (they used to talk about Robinson Cru[z]oe's (sic) economy)."

"They virtually compel atomistic selfishness, not community."

"Austrian economists (for example Mises) used to say that it is unnecessary to look at statistical data and measure social and economic phenomenon. They say that only important are 'economic laws'. Statistical data doesn't matter."

He concludes:

The remarks of these two persons are the product of either ignorance or deliberate fabrication. This remark—"I don't know what Mises said about this matter"—indicates that these two persons are engaging in idle speculation based on second hand rumors.

This is the sort of ‘argumentation’ that socialists are currently reduced to. With the collapse of the Old Soviet-type systems and widespread failure of western welfare/regulatory states, the left has taken to recasting the pro-free market position as a pro-interventionist position based on ideology, rather than science.

This is absurd, but what else can they do? They worship the state and wish it to expand greatly, but face an obstacle in trying to argue against ‘Free Marketeers’ who can point to a vast number of interventionist failures of the past. How can socialists argue against this? Direct argumentation is out of the question, so the only choices that socialist ideologues have are to admit that they are wrong or to place the burden of defending government failures on advocates of ending government intervention.

The illogic of the latter course of action is obvious, but if such persons were thinking logically, they would find their own opinions indefensible. The opinions of Doszyn and Albert demonstrate just how weak the case against Austrian economics really is.

As for those who want to know more about the Austrian School, the resources are vast. Pick a subject: Overview, Biography, Method, Subjectivism, Price&Cost, Efficiency&Law, Competition, Entrepreneurship, Calculation, Capital&Interest, Money&Banking, Business Cycle, Wages&Labor, History, History of Thought, Mixed Economy, Interdisciplinary, Taxation, [all links in the article] and this is just the beginning.

If Poland were to listen to the Austrians, what kind of economy would Poland have? One without violence or state impositions of any kind that lead to world integration, peace, and national prosperity. Austrians don't promise heaven on earth. What we do promise is that individual freedom protects us all from the hell that follows the any rise of omnipotent government on the Road to Serfdom.

Glad they didn't leave it all up to me.